


all at once everything looks different (now that i see you)

by 26stars



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Feels, First Meeting, Hurt, Soulbond--color vision, Soulmate AU, and then last moments, spoilers for season 6 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 14:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Soulmate AU: the one where you only see color once you meet your soulmate (so you don’t know them until you see them), and it goes away when they die~The world changed when she met her. It changed when she lost her.For most people, those two things only happen once.~[shameless disney lyrics in the title]





	all at once everything looks different (now that i see you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Book_freak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_freak/gifts).

> If you missed the warning, this fic definitely includes MCD, but in the canon way, so...brace yourselves for feels anyway.

**How it starts:**

Skye has seen the blackness of a bag over her head and then multiple grays of a reinforced holding cell today, and now she’s staring at the smart table of the super-secret spy plane that she was hauled onto. She can tell that the graphics are amazing, but everything is just variations of the spectrum of gray she’s seen her whole life. The two scientists nearby are jabbering in accents she can’t quite follow, and the tall guy who interrogated her hasn’t resurfaced yet, meaning he must still be sleeping off the truth serum.

“Skye, this is Agent May. She’s the pilot.”

Skye looks over her shoulder and sees Coulson with an Asian woman approaching. Their eyes meet, and the world changes.

Her eyes fly back to the screens around her, to the clothes of all the gathered Agents, the cabin of the plane around them—a literal rainbow of hues assault her in the best way, words she’s never seen the true meanings of popcorning through her mind—red, blue, lime, peach, silver, tan, gold…

She is only distracted from the wildness of the experience when the new woman takes her place at her elbow, and Skye spins excitedly towards her.

“It’s you!” she exclaims, expecting the same joy.

Agent May is gazing at the world around her with the same wide (brown) eyes, but her voice is noticeably more measured.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

**How it ends:**

The hydraulics of the ramp are busted, so all that’s standing between her team and the army of zombies Izel’s sent after them are a couple of glass-paned doors and a pile of furniture. They’re listening to communication from Deke, who isn’t even supposed to be here, trying to explain how to pilot the quinjet, when suddenly the color disappears from the room.

Daisy blinks several times, looking around wildly. Her friends’ skin has lost its warmth, the walls have lost their blue. It’s all shades of gray again, a way she hasn’t seen the world since…

Daisy’s breath freezes in her chest.

“Daisy?” Elena says when she notices. “What is it?”

She can’t say it for a long moment because saying it makes it real and this can’t be right, this _can’t_ be…

Mack understands anyway.

“May’s down,” he whispers.

There isn’t time to process this now, all it means for the moment is that Sarge is not on their side anymore, that there’s nothing standing between them and Izel’s army of the dead except for Deke, and he can’t fly over without their help…

Once he gets the jet to them, they join him in it and fly it away from the walking dead bursting through their defenses (one shrike already got through to Elena, meaning their window of time has just gotten shorter). Down in the temple, May and Izel are nowhere to be seen, probably gone through the portal standing open behind the alien wearing Coulson’s face. Blasting him with the full force of her powers does nothing but strip the visage away, and the creature beneath holds the three of them off together without trying terribly hard. The sword that he had said would beat Izel is gone, and Daisy is out of ideas as Elena collapses on the ground. She spells Mack so that he can get to her, and Daisy places herself between the monster and the gateway.

“Why keep fighting?” a voice she had once loved asks her. “Look at the power we hold, and look at your suffering.”

Daisy stares him down, letting herself feel all the rage, everything he’s put in her heart by running a sword through May’s. “Let me guess—join you and you’ll make sure I never suffer again?”

“Oh no,” Coulson’s face sneers. “I’ll make sure you do. I’ll handpick the spirits to take your flesh, to ravage your insides—every waking moment a battle will rage within you.”

Daisy feels every molecule of the air around him, preparing a blast that might end her but ought to end him too. “Can’t wait.”

In a flash, the world changes again.

She has no time to process it before the wet sound of a knife in flesh slices the air behind her. Spinning, Daisy sees the scarlet-haired songstress with the sword piercing her chest slumping back against…

_May_.

Her S.O.’s skin is pale but not gray, her eyes dark but not black, the trickle of blood from her mouth decidedly red as she smirks over Izel’s shoulder.

“Singing a different song now aren’t you?”

Daisy’s mouth falls into a disbelieving smile as their eyes meet briefly, then May is tearing out the sword, Izel is dissolving into smoke and ash, and as May collapses, she hurls the sword over Daisy’s head, reminding her that they aren’t done yet.

Daisy wheels around and puts everything she can into the blast at Sarge, blasting away the skin that was only ever sheep’s clothing and revealing the monster beneath once again. Elena releases Mack’s throat and doubles over, coughing up black bile that must be the remains of the shrike, and Mack manages to snag the sword out of the air.

At last, the monster doesn’t stand a chance.

The dust and ash that remain of it are still drifting through the air as Daisy falls on May, lifting her shoulders from the sandy ground and holding her upright against her own body. The light from the torches is still gold on May’s skin, but she’s too close to white beneath it, her blinking already slow as she gasps beneath Daisy’s touch.

“Are you all right?” she rasps, her hand finding Daisy’s where it’s pressing on her abdomen, trying to keep more bright red blood from escaping…

“I’m okay,” Daisy whispers, pressing a kiss to May's mouth, away from the blood. “We’re okay. You saved us.”

Beneath her hands, she can feel the echoes of each breath, the lack of tension in her muscles, the weakness she’s never seen Melinda May show…She tries to balance it by holding on with all the strength she has within herself.

“I thought we’d lost you,” Daisy whispers against May’s forehead, shuddering against a dry sob.

“I’m sorry…” May whispers, her voice growing weaker by the word. “I’m sorry…”

_I’m sorry you’re about to lose me anyway…_

Daisy presses a kiss to her forehead and holds on. “I love you, May, it’s okay…”

“I love you,” May exhales, fading fast. “Daisy…

Daisy can’t make herself look, so she squeezes her eyes shut as she cradles May against herself in a final embrace, as she keeps holding on after she feels her breathing slow to nothing, feels May’s hand fall away from hers, feels the last echo of a pulse fade away…

If she never opens her eyes again, she never has to know the truth, it never has to be real…

But a sound that makes no sense crashes through the room, and Daisy’s eyes fly open as she looks upward to blinding white light…

Through squinted eyes, she makes out Jemma looking down from the ledge. In shades of gray, she announces an impossible truth.

“She’ll be fine.”

**How it begins again:**

Daisy isn’t allowed in medical bay while they operate, but she knows the exact moment the doctors achieve the impossible.

The skin of her hands turns from gray to gold.

The bloodstains on her clothes change from charcoal to crimson.

Her tears of relief are colorless, just like always.


End file.
